​ATF wasted $600k on failed drone program – report

A federal audit of the Justice Department’s use of unmanned aerial systems shows that more than half a million dollars has been spent on a drone program that was quickly canned after barely getting off the ground.

The United States Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) spent roughly
$600,000 to acquire half-a-dozen rotary-wing drones between 2011
and 2012, according to the results of a probereleased this week, but never flew the aircraft
operationally.

After acquiring the six unmanned vehicles to use in surveillance
operations, the internal group overseeing the ATF’s budding drone
program determined in June 2014 that the aircraft “were
unsuitable for operational use,” according to the report, and
transferred them at no cost to the Naval Criminal Investigative
Service.

Revelations concerning the ATF’s failed drone experiment are
among the findings contained in the 22-page audit of the US
Department of Justice’s use and support of unmanned aircraft
systems released by the DoJ’s Office of the Inspector General on
Wednesday.

The DoJ heeded seven of the eight recommendations made when the
last official review of its drone program was released a year and
a half earlier, the new report reveals, but the authors of the
latest audit say they were nevertheless “troubled” to learn that
ATF spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on drones that the
agency ultimately decided it didn’t need. Supposed
“mechanical and technical problems” rendered the
aircraft unsuitable for the agency’s intended purposes, according
to the report.

Previously, the August 2013 audit from the Inspector General’s
Office determined that the ATF had planned to use unmanned
systems to support their investigations. As of August 2014,
however, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) remains the
only DoJ entity running its own drone program, according to the
report.

FBI’s drone team must travel to flight sites

The FBI relied on camera-equipped drones to conduct aerial
surveillance during 13 separate missions between January 2010 and
Aug 2014, according to the audit, including search-and-rescue
operations, kidnappings, manhunts, matters of national security,
and anti-drug trafficking interdictions. Robert Mueller, then the
bureau’s director, first admitted that the FBI’s use of drones
during a June 2013 congressional hearing, and said they had been
deployed “very seldom” – a claim confirmed with the
release of this week’s report.

Yet while the authors of the latest audit acknowledge that the
FBI has indeed used drones during life-or-death situations, the
report indicates that the bureau’s efforts so far have been
restricted due to geographical restraints that have limited the
aircraft’s deployment. The FBI had spent approximately $3 million
as of 2013 to acquire small drones, and as of last August the DoJ
had identified a total of 34 unmanned aircraft in its arsenal.
Nevertheless, that fleet has been maintained from a single
location, according to the report, where a team composed of only
two pilots is tasked with managing the drones.

“This approach differs from the decentralized deployment
approach that FBI officials told us they employ for the FBI’s
manned aircraft,” the audit acknowledges. It also, according
to the report, has made it so that a team of pilots might need
another day or longer to travel from the bureau’s drone base to a
field office in order to deploy a drone.

“We believe that having a centralized location for all FBI
UAS and relying on a single UAS pilot team could limit the FBI’s
ability to deploy UAS quickly and effectively to distant or
multiple locations,” the Inspector General’s Office says.
“Considering that the FBI has already deployed UAS to address
life-threatening situations requiring a quick response, we
recommend that the FBI implement a systematic process to reassess
regularly UAS capabilities, technological developments and
resource and training need.”

The Inspector General’s report does not provide specific examples
of when the FBI has used surveillance drones, but says they were
deployed “exclusively to provide targeted aerial surveillance
in the context of specific ongoing investigations” operated
in accordance with guidelines set forth by the Federal Aviation
Administration. Current rules require that DoJ components obtain
a Certificate of Waiver or Authorization, or COA, from the FAA
before conducting drone operations in a given location.

“Life-threatening” situations allow for emergency COAs
to be issued, “by demonstrating that an imminent threat to
life or safety exists and that manned aircraft are unavailable or
unsuitable for the particular circumstance,” the report
acknowledges, but the review revealed that instances have
occurred where obtaining even an emergency permit has taken up to
three days. The review proposes that the DoJ establish a
framework that would allow for quicker response.

Elsewhere, the report reveals that the US Department of Homeland
Security’s fleet of drones has been requested by the DoJ no fewer
than 95 times between 2010 and 2013 for Justice Dept-related
missions, including those assisting the FBI, ATF and other
components. Earlier this year, however, the Inspector General of
the DHS concluded in its own report that the drone program
operated by its Customs and Border Protection had more or less
proven to be ineffective.